The Broken Road
by SoggyMuff
Summary: "Trust no one but us" has always been the mantra of the Flock, something that's saved their lives numerous times. But it's also a very lonely way to live. Can the the Flock come to realize that not all people are evil, find a real home, and maybe defeat the bad guys once and for all in the process? Starts mid-2nd book. All Flock members play a significant role.
1. Prologue: Sarah

**Disclaimer –** Maximum Ride characters and ideas don't belong to me. Just playing with them. Original characters and this plot line do, however.

 **Setting** – This story is set roughly a few months after the Flock have left Anne's house, in the second book. Almost everything that happened in the first book and the beginning of the second book I've kept in canon for this story, but a few changes have been made to make this work in my mind.

1\. No Total. I do like the mangy little mutt, but this story just works better without him.  
2\. No new powers, like Angel talking to fish or breathing underwater. I've decided just to stick to the original abilities the Flock had when that first book started way back when. Because honestly, some of the later ones left me going, "really?"  
3\. I've changed the time of year the Flock was at Anne's. Instead of it being fall and Thanksgiving, I've moved it to spring.  
4\. The Flock did NOT go to Florida and ITEX after they left Anne's. Instead, they've spent about two months just wandering around, trying to stay safe and together.

All books after the middle of book 2 will be ignored in this fic, making it very much AU.

 **Prologue: "Sarah"**

Sarah Hughes was only five feet and one inch tall. On her picky days she called herself vertically challenged, but mostly she just had to admit she was short. Top shelves were an ordeal, and she was always having to ask one of her students to pull down the rolling screen when they used it in class.

She was slim, with red hair that fell just past her shoulders (long enough to pull back or fix up, but not so long it got in the way,) glasses, and freckles that dusted her arms and face. At thirty-four she hadn't quite given up hope on her Prince Charming, but she had to admit he was sure taking the scenic route. Still, it wasn't as if she were that lonely. Teaching music full time at the local schools and trying to keep up with twenty acres of farm left her too busy to sit around moping about being lonely.

And she had Jasper.

And Jethro.

And Jerry.

Three cats in the house was a dangerous edge to walk for a single woman, but Sarah was pretty sure one didn't cross over into Crazy Cat Lady territory until number four, and she was being careful. Of course, if she had to count all the barn cats and kittens she was way over the line, but who said she had to?

And she was happy. Flowers and cows with big, soft eyes made her smile, which almost made up for the emptiness of the rooms that yawned above her in the old farmhouse, dreams of them being filled with the stampede of energetic feet fading a little more as each year passed. Of course, after a stressful day spent navigating the halls of the jungle some brilliant person decided to name so innocently "Middle School," Sarah was rather grateful for the quiet of those empty rooms.

Sarah was a good woman – what used to be called "salt of the earth" kind of people. Good folk – raised up right. She worked hard, dreamed big, believed kindness mattered but knew you sometimes had to stand your ground. Still, there was more to Sarah than met the eye; her life hadn't always been so…normal. Her eyes held that ages-old quality that said they'd witnessed more than most, seen things she wished she hadn't. The scars of the past were faded, but not gone, and sometimes late at night the past would pull a fast one and slip out from its cage in her mind to taunt her in those hours when sleep leaves a person most vulnerable.

That's exactly what happened when she forced herself out of the grip of a nightmare and back into wakefulness at two in the morning on only the second day of summer break.

Breathing deeply to calm her nerves, she lay still, focusing on the comforting sounds of her house around her, sounds that had always assured her she was safe. There was the light breeze blowing through her open window, carrying the gentle sound of her wind chimes, the hum of the old refrigerator down below, the drip of the leaky faucet she just couldn't seem to fix, and the almost unnoticeable sound of someone moving around her kitchen…

Her eyes shot open as a jolt of fear raced down her spin, but she shoved it forcefully away. Fear wouldn't help her. Sitting up silently, she moved without a sound to the locked hall closet and the old rifle of her father's she kept safely there. At twenty miles from town and at least three from the nearest neighbor, he'd taught her that she couldn't be too cautious. Twenty miles is a long time to wait when it's life or death.

Still as silent as a ghost, she crept down the back stairs. The unwanted sounds were extremely quiet, hardly there at all. Whomever was making them was being very careful, but Sarah knew her house well, and her gut told her something was wrong. She could tell the kitchen had been abandoned now as the invader worked his or her way to the bathroom, so, gathering all her courage, she sucked in a breath and then rounded the bottom step right into the bathroom doorway, flipping on the switch to flood the room with bright light in the same motion as she brought the gun up to the ready.

"Don't move," she told the very tall, very skinny, and very dirty teenage boy with a ragged mop of strawberry blonde hair who was now staring at her with his jaw dropped, a bottle of something from her medicine cabinet halfway to the backpack in his other hand. "I'm an excellent shot."


	2. Desperation

**Chapter 1: "Desperation"**

The hum of a light he couldn't see switching on caught Iggy by surprise, milliseconds before he heard the words, "Don't move. I'm an excellent shot." He froze in shock.

 _What the…? How had someone managed to sneak up on him?_ The stress, no sleep, and horrendous headache that had been pounding against his brain all night were apparently taking their toll.

Well, whatever had caused his massive mistake, it now meant he was in a very dangerous position, trapped in a tiny, enclosed space he couldn't see, inside of an unfamiliar house, with what he assumed was a loaded gun between him and freedom. Under normal circumstances, if he'd had the element of surprise and somewhere safe to run to, he'd have just rushed the woman and knocked the gun out of her hands to escape, but his hesitation had cost him that option. Anger intensified the feelings of extreme uselessness he'd been harboring for two days and he let the bottle he was holding fall into his pack before turning to face his captor head on.

"Look, lady," he whispered desperately, not used to trying to _talk_ himself out of scrapes like this, but also knowing the stakes were too high to fail. His family was depending on him. "I just need –"

He was cut off. "Need a little fix? Small pick-me up?" The woman's voice was steely, but also almost strangely disappointed. "Or maybe just need a little cash to get by? Something quick and easy to fence? Well, I can tell you with certainty that there's nothing in that medicine cabinet that's worth the mess you'll be in with the cops if you try to walk out of here with it."

Panic started to well up inside Iggy. She thought he was a junkie! Looking for his next fix! And he so didn't have time for this! "No, you don't understand!" he cried urgently, unconsciously taking a small step forward until he heard the click of a safety being released and frozen again.

"Empty the bag," the woman said firmly, not budging an inch.

"What if I'm armed?" he asked defiantly.

"If you were armed you'd have gone for me the minute I caught you red handed. Now, dump the bag."

He couldn't fault her logic there. It was completely the truth.

With a frustrated sigh, he upended his pack on the bathroom tile, wincing as the sound of pilfered canned goods and medicine bottles hitting the hard surface assaulted his aching head through his usually overly sensitive ears. To him it was the sound of utter failure. Max never would have gotten herself caught. Neither would Fang. But useless Iggy sure did, and now time was running out and he'd created one more disaster to add to the other million that had built up in the last forty-eight hours.

There was silence for a long moment and he cursed his blindness for the inability to _see_ this woman, know what she was thinking, but finally she spoke.

"You can keep the food," she said, her voice a little warmer but not any less firm. "Put it back in the bag."

And here's where the fun part started. They desperately needed that food and he wasn't above begging, but he'd dumped it all out and let it roll wherever. To put it back in his pack, he'd have to get down on his hands and knees and feel for it. So, he now got to choose between tipping this woman off to his serious vulnerability but salvaging the food he'd come to get for the Flock, or refusing and allowing them to go hungry again.

Gritting his teeth, he sank to the floor and, never turning his back on the woman and her loaded weapon, started retrieving the cans and packages of food. He used every bit of concentration he had to try and remember where things had rolled so he might not appear to be completely groping in the dark. He had no idea if he pulled it off or not: the woman didn't say a word the entire time.

"What were you looking for in here?" she asked when he was finished and standing back up.

"Meds," he answered truthfully. Max was the brilliant planner, not him. He was too tired and his head hurt too badly to keep thinking up new lies. At least this woman hadn't gone all wolfy on him yet. Or called the cops. Of course, after Anne, he knew you could never be too careful. Still, at this point he was betting he'd get out of this mess unscathed, just without half of the vital items he'd come to get in the first place.

"I gathered that," she said dryly. "For what? You don't look like the typical junkie."

Sarcastic words leapt to his throat, but for once he didn't snap them out.

The last three days had been some of the worst of Iggy's life – and given the events in his short life history, that was saying a whole heck of a lot.

It had started with a crowded college campus they'd tried to blend into for "family day" on the hope of scoring some free food, followed by a long flight through freezing rain and an even longer night spent huddled together for warmth in a very shallow cave when the lightening had forced them out of the sky. Nudge and Max came out of it with a bit of a cold, but no one thought anything of it. They rarely got sick, and when they did, they were over it in a day or so. It was business as usual on a much nicer day, until Max literally fell out of the sky as they flew over more acres of generic farmland.

Fang managed to catch her before she made her own crater, but she was barely conscious and burning up. They sought refuge in the loft of a barn, Max claiming she just needed a few hours of rest and she'd be fine.

Yeah right.

By yesterday evening Nudge was worse than Max and panic was setting in for the Flock. An even quieter than normal Fang stood up to go scouting for supplies and promptly passed out, only Iggy's incredibly quick reflexes stopping him from a nose-dive out of the loft onto his head on the cement floor two stories below.

This morning saw only Iggy and Gazzy left standing, Angel succumbing during the night. The other four were now fighting for their lives against some illness he couldn't even guess at. All he knew was it left them vomiting, disoriented and too weak to move from intense head and neck pain, and burning up with fevers way too high for bird kids to live through for long.

Hating that he couldn't just do it himself, he'd been forced to let Gazzy check the others to see if awful numbers were appearing on their necks that shouted "hello, it's time for you to die." Thankfully, there were none – at least not yet. Meaning that whatever this was it was probably on the contagious side of health-scares rather than the mutation one. At which point he'd sent Gazzy out to scrub head to toe at an old water pump and then banished the boy to the far side of the barn, hoping against hope to keep at least one kid safe.

And then he'd had to decide what to do. He, Iggy, usually third-in-command and now de facto _blind leader_ of a flock of four puking zombies and one hopefully healthy eight-year-old kid, had to figure out the next plan.

Obviously, the one he'd picked hadn't worked out that well, given he was being held at gunpoint in some lady's bathroom, unable to even steal a few drugs.

He hated to admit it, but he needed help, needed someone to tell him what the heck he was supposed to do now.

He'd watched – okay fine, "listened to" – this woman over the last two days as he crouched hidden in her barn loft, trying to care for his family. He'd heard her whistle as she mucked out stalls, talk softly to a nervous ewe, grumble and kick her old truck when she couldn't get it going… She sounded…real…genuine. Nothing like the carefully constructed front Jeb and just lately Anne had always projected.

"I asked you want you wanted the drugs for," the woman's voice cut into his drifting thoughts, reminding him of the tense situation he was still stuck in.

"I'm not a druggie, if that's what you're thinking!" he snapped, any nerves he had left after these two days of hell worn thin.

"Then tell me what they're for," she demanded again. "And then I'll decide whether to call the cops on you or not."

It was his last chance and Iggy knew it. His head hurt so badly, was fuzzy from lack of sleep and the agonizing decisions of weighing everything that hung over them. Death for his family by torture if he trusted the wrong people and they ended up back in the clutches of the school. Death by some unknown, stupid illness if he did nothing at all. Hello rock, meet hard place. _What should he do_? And in that moment, he realized he had no choice. He was backed into a corner in oh so many ways right now. So, putting his own life and the lives of every single person he loved on the line, Iggy took the biggest risk of his life and blurted out, "For my brother and sisters, who're out there dying right now!"

There was utter silence after that. No yelling. No beeps of little phone buttons being pushed. Just the drip of a leaky faucet somewhere and the hum of a noisy fridge. Then finally, in a voice that told him the gun was still firmly in place, she spoke.

"Okay. Pick it all up then and let's go."

"Go?" he echoed stupidly.

"Go get them. Help them."

She still thought it was a lie, he could tell, knew she was also scared and trying to remain in control. But he wasn't gonna make a fuss about that now. He needed help from somewhere, and this gun-wielding lady hadn't shot him yet, so… He scrambled around the bathroom floor, finding everything he'd dropped and stuffing it back in his backpack. Then, taking the hugest risk of all, he reached up and finished swiping the entire contents of her medicine cabinet into the bag as well. It's not like he could tell if he had the right stuff anyway; better to take it all and let Gazzy sort it out later.

There was an almost amused sounding snort from the woman's direction, but she didn't say anything or stop him. Then she backed up and let him walk slowly past, falling in step behind him with her gun as he carefully wove his way through a hall and then the kitchen up to the back door he'd picked the lock on what felt like ages ago.

This time it opened freely, and he stepped outside only to immediately be accosted by a terrified eight-year-old.

"Iggy! What happened, dude? You were in there for – oh."

And he knew Gaz had seen his unwanted shadow and her hardware.

He let out a long-suffering sigh as he found the kid's shoulder and gripped it, squeezing gently. "I know, and I'm fine. Just lead us back to the others, okay?"

0o0o0o0o

Sarah's heart wasn't hammering quite as loudly in her throat now, but she was far from calm. In fact, she was utterly confused. Everything about this situation was somehow just…off. From the kid who did not scream criminal to her but was still not telling her the truth as he _stole_ from her, to the utterly dumb excuse he'd thrown out. _Dying brothers and sisters_? _Really_? Who even tried something that farfetched as an excuse? She'd been no stranger to the art of lying on the spot in her younger years and this lie was outright terrible. And yet…who would use such a lame and easily seen through lie unless it was true?

At least part of it was confirmed truth when a much younger boy literally jumped the tall one as they exited the house, worry rolling off him in waves as his questions all died at the sight of her standing there, holding a gun. A jolt of shame rushed through her.

The tall kid reached out and grabbed the younger one's shoulder. It was supportive and meant to offer comfort, but there was more to it than that. "I know, and I'm fine," he told his companion cryptically, not letting go. "Just lead us back to the others, okay?"

 _Lead…_ _Lead_ us back…

It hit her like a Clydesdale, the strange way he'd picked things up off her bathroom floor to replace them in his bag, the fact he didn't let go as the younger boy started walking…

Her would-be thief was blind.

And she was standing there holding a little kid and a blind boy at gun point.

She felt sick.

"Just a second," she called out immediately and turned back into the kitchen, no longer caring if the boys were telling a mess of lies and took the opportunity to bolt. She reset the safety on the rifle and set it on the counter, pushing it to the back. "I don't think I really need that, do you?" she asked, seeing they were actually still waiting for her.

"Thank you," the tall one, or Iggy as his younger friend had called him, said sincerely.

"You'd never have had the chance to use it if Ig really put up a fight anyway," the little boy said with a shrug.

'Ig' gave a sort of bitterly amused snort, and somehow Sarah didn't feel very comforted by either of these comments, such that they were. But she was in too deep to back out now. And to think she'd been dreaming about a nice, quiet, uncomplicated summer break.

"So, where are these other siblings again?" she asked resignedly.

The younger boy glanced warily at his companion, asking a silent question the blind boy somehow understood and answered with a nod.

"Out here," the kid said then, springing into action and guiding his friend down the dark path to her lambing barn, Sarah following along wondering exactly how far in over her head she'd just jumped.

0o0o0o0o0o

 **Author's Note:** If anyone's reading this, I would love to know what you think.


	3. Please

**Author's Note:  
** Thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, favorited, or followed this story! I can't tell you how much that means to me! You are all simply the best!

 **Chapter 2: "Please"**

"Oh good lord!"

Sarah stood frozen at the edge of the loft, electric lantern held high in one hand, staring at the sight in front of her. Four unmoving forms lay curled up on the far side, one little girl even younger than the boy who'd scampered up the ladder ahead of her. She was completely shocked. The blind boy's "lame" excuse had been absolutely true.

Then surprisingly gentle hands pushed her to the side so said blind boy could maneuver off the ladder that she was still blocking. It was the catalyst she needed to get moving again and she rushed across the loft.

"Gaz, stay over here," the tall boy ordered before following her quickly. She had a moment's worry that this might be a trap, an elaborate ruse to get her alone and off-guard, but one look at the four kids pillowed carefully in the remnants of last summer's hay crop and she knew no one was faking it.

"What happened?" she cried, dropping to her knees beside the youngest girl and placing the lantern in the hay before feeling her hot, sweaty forehead. The child's temperature was through the roof!

"I don't know," the kid answered. She watched as he flitted between his companions, brushing long fingers carefully across their skin and frowning as he heard their labored breathing. She couldn't imagine how scared and worried he must be, trying to take care of everyone when he couldn't see and had absolutely nothing to use. He didn't even have blankets or pillows, making due with rolled up jackets and musty hay. "Everyone was fine two days ago, and then one by one they just got violently sick!"

As if to prove his point, the only boy who was ill – another tall kid with dark hair and a complexion that was probably tan when he wasn't pale with illness – groaned and curled tighter, convulsing harshly with dry heaves. The other boy was at his side before she could even get there.

When Sarah touched his fevered forehead, the dark haired boy's eyes fluttered open, but he clenched them up tight again almost instantly.

"Iggy, what…what're you doing?" he ground out weakly to his "brother." Sarah didn't doubt they could be siblings through adoption or even choice, but it was obvious not everyone in this little group was related by blood.

"The only thing I had left to do," Iggy answered, his lips tight.

The sick boy didn't say anything else, the shuddering urge to retch even though there was nothing left inside his stomach overtaking him again. Sarah smoothed his long, scraggly hair back from his sweat-soaked forehead while Iggy gripped his shoulders tightly. When it was over, the boy's eyes stayed shut as he lay limp from exhaustion and pain.

Emotions and thoughts racing, Sarah sat back on her heels and looked around.

This was bad. Very, very bad. These kids were seriously ill, to the point where the girls hadn't even stirred when she arrived and the boy couldn't stay awake for longer than a few minutes. She suspected their fevers were well into the dangerous zone, their breathing was labored and pained, and they were all suffering from hunger on top of whatever else was going on. She had no idea where they'd come from, but it was obvious they were runaways – from their home, from foster care, from the law…she didn't know. But something had been bad enough to cause the older ones to take the little kids and flee.

A hand touched her shoulder and she looked up to find the blind boy standing beside her, holding out his backpack full of the contents of her medicine cabinet.

"Can you tell me what in here I can give them to help bring the fevers down?" he asked, no longer trying to pretend she hadn't noticed his blindness. "And what's good for headache and stomach pains?"

Sarah sighed, running a hand through her sleep-mussed hair. "All that's in there is over-the-counter pain and cold meds, and a really old bottle of Pepto. Nothing that's gonna be any good here," she said softly, still looking around in overwhelming worry as she pushed the bag back to him. "Besides, they're all out. They couldn't even swallow it."

The boy gritted his teeth, looking right at her with cloudy blue eyes in a very unnerving way. "Please?" he begged, holding the pack out once more. "I can't read the labels and I'm trying to keep Gazzy from getting sick, too. Trust me, I can get them to swallow it. We're all good at swallowing stuff when unconscious." The last part was said with a scarcely hidden bitterness that pricked at Sarah's suspicions.

Sighing again, she stood up and faced the teen. "Your name's Iggy, right?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Iggy, your brother and sisters are really sick! They need more than a little Tylenol! And they should not be here, in my drafty loft, with temperatures that are sky-high!"

"Well, this is all I got, so will you help me or not?" he snapped, anger flashing across his pale face.

"Yes, I'll help you," she answered firmly, trying to get him to calm down. "But I'm gonna go back in the house and call for real help! An ambulance! Paramedics!"

"NO!" he cried, dropping the bag and seizing her arm with an iron grip. "You can't!"

"Iggy, listen to me!" she shouted back, placing her free hand on top of the fist clenched around her arm. "They're really, _really_ sick! I can tell you guys are in some kind of trouble, running or hiding from something, but is it really worth them dying? Because if they don't get help, I'm afraid that's what will happen! I can't sit around while four kids die in my barn! They need to be in a hospital!"

At their feet, the dark haired boy stirred slightly, groaning and holding his head, cringing at the loud voices. The other three never even moved, which scared Sarah even more. Stubbornly, she yanked her arm out of the blind boy's grip and moved past him, headed for the ladder, barely noticing the smaller boy cowering in fear against the far wall.

"If they go to the hospital they _will_ die!" Iggy yelled behind her, stopping her in her tracks. She whirled around to find him standing there, shaking with his fists clenched at his sides. "You'll be killing them!" he finished, blind eyes glaring daggers at her.

"How? By getting them help? Putting their care in the hands of doctors and nurses that can actually _do_ something for them?" Sarah shot back, worry and concern making her lose her patience. "What could you have possibly done that's so bad? Give me _one good reason_ that a _hospital_ could be a death sentence!"

Iggy didn't answer, fury and terror still radiating from him, and Sarah was just about to turn and race back down the ladder in pursuit of her phone, when he suddenly gave a little shake of his arms and shoulders and then…then…things began to appear at his sides. Things covered in…in…feathers…that…that…kept going and going…

Sarah's jaw dropped and her knees went wobbly. She took a step backwards without even realizing it, almost off the edge of the loft, and tried not to quit breathing.

"Iggy no…" the dark haired boy muttered weakly, but she barely heard it.

The boy had…had… _wings_! Huge wings that stretched out on either side of him, filling the small loft space. Backlit from the glow of the lantern she'd left sitting on the floor, he appeared in silhouette like some avenging angel, or something straight off the Sci-fi Channel.

"You…you have…" she whispered, her powers of speech suddenly gone.

"Wings," he finished for her, moving them forward and back for effect as he continued to stare her down, fists still clenched. "Wings. All of us. And the people that put them there didn't exactly ask us if we wanted them, or give us permission to leave their cozy little prison of a lab. Sending us off to the hospital is as good as knocking on their door and asking them to come take us back, and I can tell you that I will _die_ before I let them take me or any of the others back to that place again! Lady, I'm risking _everything_ here and I'm begging you, _please help me help them_!"

Sarah's brain felt mushy, like she'd just pulled an all-nighter with a ewe in labor and then still tried to go in and teach all day. This couldn't be real; people didn't have wings! She thought for just a moment she might be dreaming, but the chilly tendrils of a cool, spring breeze pulling at her arms and the rough wood of her loft floor pressing into her bare feet assured her she was wide awake.

She turned away slightly, gazing out over the edge of her loft to the yawning space of the open barn door that was black with the darkest hours of night, trying to clear her head. So many questions were hurtling through her brain. _Wings_! On _children_! Who did that? Where had these six come from? And…and… _wings_!

But they were sick – horribly sick. And she didn't know what to do! She taught music and raised cows, put violins in the messy hands of nine year olds and hoped to high heaven that in four years or so they might not sound like air-raid sirens any longer. She knew when to plant corn and how to drive a tractor. She did not know how to deal with this!

She glanced back slightly, looking at the blind boy. He'd pulled his…his… _wings!_...back into wherever they went to stay hidden, and now he just stood there, shoulders slumped and a look of desperate pleading etched across his pale face.

Sarah's breath caught, memories swirling. She didn't know anything about children with…with wings. And she didn't know much about medicine and treating serious illnesses. But she knew about secrets, about pain and loss, about fear and loneliness. She certainly knew about _that look_ – the one that spoke of complete hopelessness and despair, of throwing all your cards on the table in one last ditched gamble because there was honestly nowhere left to go. She'd seen that expression stare back at her out of the mirror right before a scarred and damaged twelve year old had agreed to walk out of the doors of the Children's Home with the two people who were probably her last chance on earth.

And thanks to those two wonderful, patient people, she also knew about love. Which was something else she saw plastered across the pleading boy's face. Love, for his family, strong enough to shove pride and fear aside and beg for them, strong enough to _die_ for them!

Sucking in a deep gulp of air, she turned back around.

"All right," she said softly. "I'll try. But we need to get them out of this loft somehow, down the ladder without falling, up into the house…" She trailed off, forcing the unanswered and insane questions to the side for later, trying to focus on what needed to be done _now_. She purposefully put herself into _crisis teacher mode_ and pushed forward. "Between the two of us maybe we can –"

"I can get them down," Iggy interrupted, slipping the impossible _wings_ back out into sight before unerringly making his way to the smallest girl's side and pulling her up into his arms. "Take Gazzy with you and I'll meet you there. I can find my way now I've done it once."

Which was impossible, her mind screamed at her, for a blind boy to be able to navigate his way to her back door while carrying a sick, ragdoll of a little girl, after only walking the path once. But then, so were _wings_!

At least when reality decided to implode around her it was consistent by doing it with everything.

"Okay," she answered simply, then kicked herself into motion and rushed down the ladder, thoughts of sleep forgotten as she headed for her house and what she knew would be a long and desperate night. Even so, knowing dying children took so much precedence over burning curiosity, it took all her will-power not to stop and turn and watch a blind boy _fly_!


	4. Silence

**Chapter 3: "Silence"**

Quiet. It was so quiet. All around him.

Normally, Iggy loved the quiet. When it was silent and still, he could function, could tell where things and people were, what was happening. He felt more normal, less… _blind_.

But this silence, as he sat vigil beside the beds of most of his family, was terrifying.

His sensitive ears clung to the hushed sounds of their ragged breathing, picking out their individual patterns, petrified that at any moment, some of those precious sounds might disappear, might actually…stop.

A little, fevered sigh escaped Angel and he reached out, taking her tiny, limp hand in his and squeezing gently, wishing she would wake up. Wishing all of them would wake up.

Because he had no idea what he would do if they didn't. He just knew he would be lost – totally and completely lost.

He squeezed Angel's hand one more time, then let it drop, rising carefully to unsteady feet. He was so tired, and the pounding in his head had been unrelenting for what felt like days, to the point it was starting to throw off his hearing. But he couldn't sleep. Couldn't give up the watch. There was no one else to hand it off to.

Gently, he brushed his fingers across Angel's skin, hope crushed when there was no change from the hour before. He moved around to the other side of the bed, doing the same for Fang, pausing to count his brother's thready pulse. Some hours before, shortly after the woman – Sarah he reminded himself – had helped him settle them into the two big beds of this old farmhouse bedroom, Fang had slipped into unconsciousness, just like the others. Again, just like with Angel, there was no change.

He turned, grabbing for the bedframe for a moment when vertigo and exhaustion made his dark world spin, then shuffled on tired feet across the room to the other bed where Max and Nudge were.

Could it only have been the early hours of that same morning that he'd made four draining trips back and forth from the barn to this house, carrying his family one at a time? That he'd stripped Fang of his sweat soaked clothes and stuffed his unresponsive limbs into a borrowed t-shirt and pair of sweats while Sarah did the same for the girls? That he'd lifted them one by one into these beds? Crammed enough medicine down their throats to alarm Sarah despite his assurances that they could handle it?

Wearily, he trailed his fingers up Nudge's too still form, his hands hoovering for just a moment in front of her lips to feel the miniscule movement of breath across them. How many times had he slapped a hand over those lips to stop her prattling, and how much would he give to hear it now.

Max lay boneless on the other side of the bed, breathing raggedly. Some of her hair was plastered to the moisture across her face and he smoothed it back, tucking it behind her ear, reading the steady burn of her fever through his fingertips.

No change, no improvement, no evidence of the superfast healing they'd all come to take for granted kicking in. If anything, they were getting worse. The only thing that gave him even a little spark of hope was that so far, Gazzy seemed to have been spared. Not that he'd seen the kid since he came in this room all those hours ago. He'd ordered his ever-present little shadow as far from this sick room as possible, and he prayed Sarah had found him some form of entertainment. Before he started blowing things up.

He sighed and picked up one of Max's hands, feeling callouses and rough nails. They practically screamed _World's Toughest Leader_.

"This was a dumb idea, Max, falling out of the sky and leaving the blind kid calling the shots," he said softly, trying to keep the tears out of his voice. "You gotta come back, beat this stuff, whatever it is, because I'm lousy at being in charge. And…and I don't know that to do," his voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm scared, Max. What do I do?"

There was no reply, no sarcastic answer or Max-style chewing out for not believing in himself. Just more silence.

Iggy decided that he didn't like silence – he hated it.

"Hey," a voice called from the doorway of the room accompanied by the sound of knuckles rapping softly on wood. It was Sarah. "I brought food up. Some soup for you and broth for them." She walked into the room and Iggy heard her setting a tray down on the small table in the corner of the room. "Come sit down for a minute and eat – if your appetite is anything like your brother's you've got to be starving. Then, when you finish, we can work on getting them to swallow some broth."

Food didn't sound at all appealing right now, but he couldn't deny that his body did need it. He'd barely eaten in the last two days.

"Thanks," he said quietly. He squeezed Max's hand one more time and then set it back down on the sheets, finding his way to the table and an old wooden chair. He reached forward and his fingers encountered a bowl and a spoon. A _big_ bowl – Sarah was a fast learner.

"Gazzy explained that you guys need eat a lot," she confirmed, her voice sounding as tired as he felt.

"Thanks," he muttered again, picking up the spoon.

The soup was warm and creamy, full of cheese and broccoli. His inner chef recognized that it was really good, but mostly he just forced it down because he knew he needed it. While he ate, Sarah moved quietly between the beds, checking on everyone just as he had moments before, smoothing cold clothes across foreheads and fixing covers. Finally she sighed and sank down into the chair he'd vacated by Angel's side.

"How long have you guys been living like this, on the run?" she spoke quietly.

Iggy's gut clenched, his natural instincts to not tell, keep the secret, protect everyone flaring up. And then he reminded himself that they were way past that point by now.

"Off and on, for about five months."

"So you were…were prisoners for all the time before that?" Her voice was shaky and appalled.

Iggy shook his head. "No. We were kept at the lab until right before I turned ten, then one of the scientists helped us escape." He clenched his jaw, Jeb's betrayal still raw and hurtful, but forced himself to keep going. "We lived with him until he disappeared two years later. Then we kept living in the house, pretending everything was fine for another couple years, until it all went to heck when the Whitecoats found us and kidnapped Angel."

He heard Sarah suck her breath in and turn, probably glancing at Angel's small form lying so still on the bed. "They took her back?"

"Yeah, but we managed to get her out again. Then we took off, wandering around."

"And you've been on your own and homeless since then?"

"Mostly," Iggy answered tiredly, reminding himself to keep eating even though the headache was making him wonder if the food was going to stage a reappearance in a less appealing form. "Fang had an…accident, and we ended up in the hospital to get him all patched up, which brought the FBI onto us. One of the agents had us come live with her for a month or so, but we left when we realized she was working with the Whitecoats and it was all a stupid ruse. Max hasn't dared stay in one place for too long since then, or trust anyone."

"I don't blame her. No wonder you wouldn't let me call for an ambulance," Sarah replied gently. "Iggy, how old are you?"

He thought about lying. They were tall for their ages, easily able to pass as older than they really were, but he also figured Sarah wasn't stupid. He'd spilled enough of their story that she could easily do the math; she was probably just asking for confirmation anyway. Heck, he'd been too stressed when he first met her to even remember to use fake names, so now she even knew their real ones.

"Fourteen," he answered, hanging his head.

"And the others?"

"Max and Fang are also fourteen; Max is the oldest. Nudge is eleven. Gazzy eight and Angel six."

Sarah didn't answer for a while, processing everything he'd just told her. Iggy pushed the bowl back. It wasn't empty, but he just couldn't force anymore food down and just waited, listening again to the labored breathing and heartbeats of his family.

"What did they do to you, a bunch of kids, in this lab?" she finally asked, very softly.

Iggy turned to her, aiming his eyes where he hoped she was sitting, his face drawn and serious. "Do you _really_ want to know?"

"No," she answered sadly, "but I need to. You are all proof that there are very evil things happening out there. The least I can do is not hide from the ugly truths when I find them, so yes, I want to know."

So he told her.

Everything.

About growing up beaten, starved, and tortured. About spending the first ten years of his life in a freaking cage. About scientists who thought they had the right to play god with little babies and children. About being a number, an experiment, a _thing._ About being chased, hunted, never safe.

And when he was finished, the shocked silence that filled the room was almost tangible. He could actually _feel_ it sitting around and between them, as Sarah tried to find words, any words, to reply with, broken only by the jagged sound of three bird-kids still struggling to breathe.

Finally, she sucked in a breath and started to speak, but before she could, Iggy realized what was wrong with the thought he'd just had.

 _Three_ bird-kids?

"Nudge!" he shrieked, jumping to his feet before Sarah got more than a shaky "Iggy, I'm –" out. "NUDGE!" he screamed again, leaping to her side as all his insides froze with terror.

Nudge wasn't breathing.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

Thanks so much for the reviews and reads everyone. Also, if you are reading this, I would dearly love to know what you think. Reviews can make my day!


	5. Breathe

**Chapter 4: "Breathe"**

"NUDGE!" Iggy shrieked, rushing to the younger girl's side, completely cutting off Sarah's attempts to find words that could even start to express her horror at what she'd just heard.

"What is it?" she cried, leaping to her feet and following him.

"She's not breathing!" he screamed, splaying his hand against the girl's chest to check for a pulse.

She didn't question how he could tell, sitting clear over in the corner. She'd realized by now that this kid was special in more ways than just the wings. Instead, cold fear shot through her. This could not be happening!

"There's a faint pulse, she's just not breathing in air!" Iggy said in horror. He immediately pulled the pillow from beneath his sister's head and then tipped her head back, covering her mouth with his and forcing air into her lungs.

"Come on, Nudge, honey!" Sarah pleaded as if she knew her, grabbing the girl's hand and squeezing. "Breathe for us! Please!"

Again Iggy breathed for her then pulled away, counting in a terrified whisper. And again. And again. Then he paused to hold his shaking fingers in front of her lips.

"Anything?" Sarah asked, squeezing the girl's fingers tighter.

With tears streaming down his face, he shook his head before resuming his desperate task.

"Oh, please, God," Sarah begged, her own face moist now, "let this little girl breathe again! Don't take her away! She's just a baby! Please, please –"

A sudden shudder went through the girl's still form and then she sucked in a harsh breath on her own.

"Yes, that's it! Keep breathing, sweetie!" Sarah cried, rubbing her hand up and down the girl's skinny arm. Iggy froze, hoovering right above his sister as he listened to the sound of air once again entering and leaving her lungs.

In. Out. In. Out.

It was faint and kind of ragged, but it was there.

For probably ten minutes, neither one of them dared move, afraid the wisps of air would disappear but they held steady.

Finally, Iggy sank boneless to the floor beside the bed and it was as if something inside of him cracked. His head dropped into his hands and deep, gut-wrenching sobs poured out.

 _Fourteen_ , Sarah thought.

He was only _fourteen_ -years-old!

Fourteen and blind, with his family dying around him.

Quietly, Sarah sat on the floor next to him and pulled his head to her shoulder. He was a foot taller than her, but he sagged against her, starved for comfort. For a long time she just sat there, rubbing his head but never saying a word, letting the sobs drain away. Eventually, he ran out of energy and tears and he pulled back, embarrassed.

"Will you be okay now?" she asked, standing and purposefully not making a fuss.

He nodded.

"Okay, stay here with them. I'll be right back."

She made it as far as the downstairs bathroom before the adrenaline of the moment drained and she was left with the realization of what had just happened, what had _almost_ happened. And then she heaved everything she'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours up into the cold porcelain of her toilet bowl. For a minute afterward, she could only kneel there shaking.

"Are you sick, too?"

The small, scared voice coming from the bathroom door she'd forgotten to close made her head jerk around. The little boy – Gazzy – stood there, eyes wide with fear.

She closed the lid, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, climbed to her feet, pushed the lever to flush. "No, Gazzy," she answered firmly. "I'm not, I promise."

"But…you just…like they all did at first…"

"I promise I'm okay," she said again, ushering him out of the doorway. "Now go back downstairs. Put on another video, all right? In a few hours, I'll let you come help me milk, 'k."

He didn't believe her, she could tell. But he nodded and want back down the stairs to the basement family room.

And then Sarah, having made up her mind about something, grabbed her cell phone off the counter and stepped out into the backyard.

0o0o0o0o0o

"Hey, Maggie," Sarah spoke quietly into the phone when it was picked up. "Yeah, it's Sarah."

"Sarah," Maggie McLean's voice came through, and the familiar warmth almost made her lose it. She sat weakly on the old bench beside the shed. "I was planning to call you today, after I saw Linda on organ instead of you. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sarah lied. "Sorry to bug you on a Sunday, but is Doc there?" She knew the woman would be suspicious of her short answers, but time was running out, and she also knew Maggie was discreet enough to let it drop.

"Yeah, he just turned on the game. Let me get him."

Sarah waited, her mind whirling. She knew she was breaking a huge trust, but she also knew she had no choice. While she'd been cooking the soup, she'd done some research on the 'net. A week ago, right before school let out, an email had been sent around warning of recent outbreaks on local college campuses of meningococcal meningitis. Highly contagious, fast acting, deadly. Her twenty minutes of internet surfing made her almost one-hundred percent sure there was an outbreak of it raging through her upstairs bedroom at the moment as well. And after the little girl had… _almost died_ …she knew she had to get help. Real help.

"Sarah! What can I do for ya?" Doc McLean's booming voice broke through her thoughts, and she held the phone away from her ear slightly. The gentle giant of a man had never learned the meaning of the word _quiet_.

Sarah gulped, and then dove in. "Doc, you've known me since I was twelve. You were there when both Dad and Mom passed, and…I need your help. I need you to trust me on something that is so out of this world…and crazy…and the single most important thing I've ever asked of anyone." She was rambling, but she couldn't help it. Her reserves of calm were shot to heck.

"Sarah, darling, breathe," Doc's voice was calm (if still loud) and serious. "You know I trust you, girl. Now, talk."

"I've got four runaway kids sick with what I think is meningitis in one of my spare rooms and we can't take them to the hospital because they have wings – _real wings_ – and I know you'll think I'm crazy but I'd never make this up, so please, please believe me! And…and they're dying but if I call for an ambulance they'll get sent back to hell, absolute hell, and I don't know what to do and –" A sob broke through her voice and she closed her eyes, raking fingers through her messy hair. "Doc, I need help. Please," she whispered.

There was complete silence for a long minute on the other end and Sarah started to wonder if he'd hung up on her, if she'd just lost the trust of the last bit of family she had, but finally he spoke.

"I'll be there in half an hour. Just me, I promise."

The line went dead and Sarah let the phone drop into her lap. She pulled her glasses off and rubbed at her eyes, letting the tears of worry and exhaustion flow for a few moments before slipping them back on.

Now she just had to go back in there and tell a boy who was already at the breaking point what she'd just done.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

 **Author's Note:** I can't tell all of you how much it means to have people reading and reviewing this story! It makes my day. And please, I do love to hear from you, so let me know what you think.

I realize these chapters are getting a bit shorter. Which is weird. I usually do long chapters when I write things, but somehow this story is leading itself to shorter ones. I hope no one minds.

And one last note - I'm going to be posting another story soon as well. It's a crossover, featuring CSI NY and Maximum Ride. I'll be putting it up in the CSI NY section, but if that's something you think might interest you, go poke around my profile page and let me know what you think.

Thanks!


	6. Help

**Chapter 5: "Help"**

"You should have called me earlier," Doc McLean sighed, finishing his rapid, cursory examination of the last of his four new patients. "Your suspicions are right on. Bacterial Meningitis. Frankly, these children should be dead."

His voice wasn't unkind, but he'd never been one to beat around the bush. Sarah shivered, but before she could answer, Iggy jumped in.

"We heal really quick, and we don't usually get sick," he grumbled. The boy was sulking, leaning against the corner of the room with his arms crossed, as far away from Doc as he could get, bestowing an unfocused death glare on the whole room at large.

"Which is probably the only reason I'm going to be administering medicine right now instead of helping Sarah dig four holes in the back pasture," Doc said bluntly. "Now come here, young man, I could use your help."

Iggy hesitated, and Sarah could tell that beneath the angry, defiant teenager front he was presenting there was real, heart-stopping fear at work, but he finally shuffled forward. His steps lacked the confident grace he'd moved with when she first met him, and she knew he was beyond exhausted, having skipped sleep for who knew how many days now. Hopefully, if Doc McLean could get the others stabilized, Iggy could be persuaded to rest for a while.

"When were their last vaccinations, do you know?" Doc asked Iggy as he immediately got to work, thrusting some bags of clear liquid he pulled from his leather doctor's bag into the boy's hands. Then he gestured for Sarah to hand over the hammer and nails she'd fetched only moments ago.

"Vaccinations?" Iggy spat. "Are you kidding? We're the freaks they test the diseases _on_ to see what happens when you catch them. I don't think we've ever been vaccinated against anything in our entire lives."

Okay, Iggy was majorly grumpy, Sarah couldn't help thinking. Obviously she had underestimated the teen's hatred of doctors and anything related to them. There was a snark to his comments that had never been there with her, even when he'd been caught fingers-deep in her medicine cabinet.

To his credit, however, the big doctor took it all in stride, though Sarah could see the angry set to his lips and dark scowl in his eyes. Not at Iggy. But at the thought of what people had done to these children, in the supposed name of the greater good and science.

"Sorry about the walls, Sarah," Doc threw at her as he gripped the hammer, placing a nail. "I'll come help you fix them later."

"Don't worry about it," she assured him. "Do whatever you need to help these kids."

With quick strokes, his rough, weathered hands drove two nails into her wall, above the side of the bed where little Angel lay. For just a moment, Sarah took the time to marvel at those hands – how they could be so worn and calloused, yet so gentle when caring for people.

Doctor Lyman McLean was a bit of an anomaly. Built like a linebacker, with a voice that boomed no matter what he said, he was the type of man you pictured as the foreman of the construction crew, not in a doctor's office. But the rough exterior belied a warm and generous heart. It made for a strange and yet wonderful mix – the gruff doctor who told it to you how it was, then gave you a lollipop afterwards. He should have retired five years ago, but he just couldn't. The small, rural community was his family, his people. He'd delivered half of them, treated their scrapes and bruises, walked with them through the trials of old age. He'd laughed with them, prayed with them, cried with them…he just couldn't stop caring for them, for as long as he was able.

Not that a desperate and freaked out mutant teenager was willing to notice any of that right now, however.

"What are you doing?" Iggy asked with open suspicion, fingering the items that had been stuck in his hands.

"Jury-rigging a way to hang IVs," Doc answered. "A trick I learned in Vietnam. Here, Sarah," he added, turning back to face her and handing off the hammer and nails. "Go do that above each of the others as well."

Sarah took the tools and moved around the bed to the side where the dark-haired boy lay – "Fang" Iggy had called him – listening as she pounded nails.

"These kids needed antibiotics being pumped into them days ago. I'm not wasting any more time to try and track down real IV poles that no one will notice are missing and bring them here."

"What about all this other stuff?" Sarah couldn't help asking as she stepped over to the other bed. "Will someone notice? Will you get in trouble?"

"Don't worry about it, Sarah. I'll take care of it," Doc assured her. "This secret is safe with me, I promise," he added, this time directing his words toward the still hostile Iggy.

"What's in these? What are you giving them?" the boy demanded, holding up one of the squishy bags.

"Antibiotics and fluids. That's it. Now, are you squeamish at the sight of needles?"

Iggy scoffed. "I'm not squeamish at the sight of anything, _Doctor_. The Whitecoats took care of that years ago when they broke my eyes."

That finally got a reaction out of Doc. For just a moment, he paused, looking hard at the boy standing beside him, rage and sorrow mixed on his rugged face. Sarah stared as well, equal parts surprised that Doc hadn't noticed Iggy was blind until now and horrified to learn it had been done to him on purpose. He'd neglected to include that tidbit of information in the brief rundown of the atrocities he and his family had faced that he'd shared with her earlier.

"All right then," Doc said, recovering fast. "You just got drafted as my nurse. Sarah, we'll need you, too."

0o0o0o0o0o

"She's soft. And she has pretty eyes."

Sarah smiled tiredly at the young boy as he ran curious hands down the side of her Jersey cow.

"Yes, she does," she answered gently.

"Does she have a name?" the boy asked, his blue eyes locked on the cow's big, doleful brown ones.

"Jane," Sarah answered, rinsing out the cloth she'd just used to wash off the udder.

"Max says names are important. People name things they care about. That must mean you're nice to her."

Sarah wondered how long the list of people who hadn't been nice to this little boy was. It made her sad, because no one should have to grow up like that.

He was very quiet and subdued tonight, something she sensed wasn't normal for him, but they were both exhausted and weighed down by worry and fear. And Sarah felt bad. In the last twenty-four hours Gazzy had been pretty much abandoned and ignored as she focused on trying to help his siblings. With Doc upstairs now watching over the others, though, she'd decided to try and fix that by bringing the youngest boy outside with her to help with the evening chores.

"Gazzy's a pretty interesting name," she acknowledged, pulling up the stool and situating the bucket. Jane stood calm and still, chewing her scoop of oats in routine contentment, unaware of the complete spiraling out of control of life around her.

"We named ourselves," Gazzy said matter-of-factly. "Well, Max, Fang and Iggy did. And they gave us younger ones names, too, since all the Whitecoats ever gave us was an experiment number."

A sad sigh that she couldn't stop escaped as she listened to Gazzy's words, but she forced her hands to keep up the steady rhythm, the familiar sound of the milk as it streamed into the pail somehow comforting in the midst of all this change.

"Gazzy's just my nickname," the boy continued, sliding closer to her side and watching with fascination as she worked.

"What's it stand for?"

"The Gasman."

Sarah turned her head sideways to look at him without stopping the rhythm of her hands, raising an eyebrow as a smiled tugged at her lips.

"Okay, little man, what's the story behind _that_ name?"

"My digestive system's kinda messed up so…I can fart really good! I can clear a room in ten seconds! Iggy calls it my evil gift." He smiled huge, looking like an eight-year-old boy instead of the scared zombie who'd been wandering the lower levels of her house all day.

And only an eight-year-old boy could take unbounded pride in knowing he was named after flatulence. For the first time in what felt like years, Sarah laughed.

"Try not to use that gift in the house, okay?" she said, shaking her head as she grinned.

Gazzy giggled, but she noticed he made no verbal promises.

"Will you take the milk to the store and sell it once you're done?" he asked.

"No. Some farms do that, but this is just a little farm. I only have two cows, Jane and Rosebud over there, and their calves. I just keep them so I can have my own milk without having to buy it."

"How come your farm's so small?" He sat down next to her on the barn floor, watching intently.

"It didn't used to be. It was my parents' farm, and it used to be a lot bigger, but when they died and left it to me, I couldn't keep up with it all. I sold most of the land to a neighbor who promised to take good care of it and make it part of his own farm. I just kept enough to have a little bit of a farm, because I like animals and growing things and needed a way to make a little extra money. You don't make a lot of money teaching school."

"Do all your animals have names?"

"Yep."

"Even the pigs?"

Sarah smirked. "Yep. Their names are Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner."

"Yummy," Gazzy laughed. "Next time you get a pig, name it Bacon."

"I like you. You catch on quick," she said, laughing with him. It felt really good.

"Can I try that?" he suddenly asked, changing the subject with no warning in the way only children can do. He pointed at her hands that were still squeezing the last bit of milk out.

"Sure," Sarah answered. She patted her lap, and Gazzy moved in front of her, then she guided his small hands to the front teats. "Grasp it at the top with your thumb and pointer finger then squeeze down like your fingers are doing the wave or something. That pushes the milk all the way down and out the hole at the bottom."

Awkwardly, he followed her directions, jumping when a small jet of warm milk shot out at a wild angle, hitting them both in the legs. He snorted with laughter.

"It's usually better to aim for the bucket," Sarah said with a laugh.

A few more tries and he was going rather well, if slowly. She let him finish, just checking to make sure Jane was really milked out at the end, before rubbing her down once more with the warm cloth.

"Now what do we do?"

"Well, we've checked on the sheep and the lambs, fed the pigs and chickens, and finished the milking. I think the chores are done. Now we strain the milk and put it in the fridge for the night, then go feed The Three J's."

"The Three J's?" Gazzy asked, picking up the smaller bucket and carrying it carefully so he wouldn't spill a drop.

"Jethro, Jerry, and Jasper – my cats."

"Oh, yeah! I think one of them slept on my chest when I took a nap this afternoon."

"That would be Jasper."

When they reached the back door, Gazzy handed her his bucket, then pulled the door open and held it for her.

"Why thank you, Mr. Gazzy. You're quite the gentleman," she teased.

"You might not think that when you see the mess in your TV room downstairs," he answered with a wry grin. "I got really bored today."

Sarah just shook her head with a smile. She set the buckets on the counter and was reaching for some clean sections of cheesecloth when she heard a muffled thump from upstairs.

"SARAH!" Doc's voice suddenly resonated through the house.

Instantly, the smiles and respite from the stress were gone. Gazzy looked at her, a scared and alone little boy once more, tears hiding in his eyes and she looked back, exhaustion and fear dripping from her. On instinct, she reached out and pulled him to her tightly, kissing the top of his head, before whispering "stay here" and sprinting upstairs, filled with renewed dread.

0o0o0o0o0o

Just as he had every few minutes for the last several hours, Doctor McLean checked the vitals and temperatures of his patients. He was pleased to note that even in that short amount of time, he was seeing measurable improvement. The fevers were still high, but no longer rising, and the breathing of all four had smoothed and stabilized. The boy had been right – with the help of the antibiotics, their bodies were kicking in to fight the bacteria remarkably fast.

And speaking of said boy, Doc glanced over to the corner, studying his silent, glaring companion.

Once the IV's had been set up and things had started to improve, Iggy had parked himself in the corner again, arms defiantly crossed. He refused to sit, but instead somehow bored holes in the doctor's back with blind eyes, letting Doc know in no uncertain terms that his every move was being monitored, all while making sure his escape route to the door remained open at all times.

Doc sighed. He'd seen that kind of fearful, instinctual – almost animalistic – behavior before. In POW's, or victims of extreme torture and abuse. He'd seen shades of it on a twelve-year-old girl who'd once come to live in this very house. It broke his heart then and it broke his heart now.

"There's two chairs in here, you know. I'm pretty sure the wall can stay up on its own without you holding it," he said causally.

Iggy didn't move even though Doc could see the way his exhausted body trembled with the strain of keeping him upright.

"Are they getting any better?" the boy simply asked, lowering his head slightly and letting his stringy hair fall forward to cover his eyes.

"Yes. I'm seeing improvement."

"When will they wake up?"

Doc sighed again. "I'm not sure. For a normal person, I wouldn't think they'd come around for at least three or four more days. Bodies that have been pushed this far need time to heal. But you guys are anything but normal."

Iggy snorted but didn't answer.

Doc had to admit to being intensely curious. He hadn't seen their wings, knowing somehow that to ask would be the ultimate mistake and breach of trust, but he couldn't help wondering about them. Still, the physiological differences he'd noted in the last hours as he examined and cared for the young people had been enough to leave him with no doubt the wings existed.

"You should know," he started gently, turning around to fully face the boy in the corner, "they might not come out of this unscathed." He didn't want to have to tell Iggy this, but it wasn't fair to hide it from the boy.

"What do you mean?" Iggy asked, raising his head again, allowing Doc to see his pale face and unfocused eyes.

"Meningitis is a nasty, doesn't play fair disease. It attacks the membranes of the brain and even when treated promptly can cause death. Those that manage to survive can be left with a whole host of complications. For normal people, it's rare to not see at least one."

"Complications?" Iggy gulped, and Doc noted the shaking of his body increase. He wished he could get the boy to let go of his fear enough to at least sit in a chair. "You mean, like brain damage?" he asked.

"Yes. Meningitis can cause damage to the brain that could result in vision or hearing loss, memory loss, seizures, impairment of motor and fine muscle skills, migraines, learning disabilities…"

Iggy just stared at him, well at the air a little to his left, his jaw dropped and complete horror on his face as silence filled the room. Then suddenly, he turned and pounded the wall beside him with a fist, words slipping from between his teeth that Doc was pretty sure he wasn't meant to hear. He banged on it a few more times before letting his forehead sink against it, what little energy he'd had left entirely spent.

"Will that happen to them, for sure?" he finally whispered, his voice muffled by the wall he was speaking into.

"Nothing is sure, son. We won't know until they wake up."

Iggy heaved a ragged breath, which caught Doc's attention. He looked closer at the boy and saw he was trembling all over, almost swaying against the wall. He stood up quickly, taking a step closer.

"But they will wake up?" the young man asked, his voice barely audible.

"Yes, I'm one hundred percent sure now that they will wake up. The drugs are doing their job."

"Good," Iggy muttered, and then his eyes slid closed and his body crumpled as he hit the floor with a resounding _thump_ before Doc could catch him.

"SARAH!" Doc bellowed, knowing he'd need help before he even knelt down at the teen's side. He instantly noted two things with great dread. One – Iggy was burning up with a fever that had to rival what the others had reached and two – the boy's heartbeat was silent and still.

"Oh no you don't!" Doc growled, straightening his limp form out on the floor. "No one is dying tonight on my watch!" he shouted at the boy. With grim determination he started CPR.

 **Author's Note:**

As always, thank you to everyone who is reading! And a special thanks to my faithful reviewer kalk7897!

If you are interested, the first two chapters of my CSI NY/Maximum Ride fic will be going up tomorrow. Check my profile for the link if you want to.:)

Thanks again!


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